Two major reform efforts in K-12 science education have taken place during the past 50 years. The first was the 1950-1970 curriculum reform efforts motivated by the launching of Sputnik and sponsored by the newly formed National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States and by the Nuffield Foundation in the United Kingdom. The signature goal for these reformed programs was to produce courses of study that would get students to "think like scientists," thus placing them in a "pipeline" for science careers (Rudolph, 2002). The second U.S. and U.K. reform effort in science education began in the 1980s and continues to this day as part of the national standards movement. Referred to as the "Science for All" movement in the United States and the "Public Understanding of Science" in the United Kingdom, here the education goal was and is to develop a scientifically literate populace that can participate in both the economic and democra tic agendas of our increasingly global market-focused science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) societies. In addition to the economic and democratic imperatives as a purpose for science education, more recent voices of science education reform (Driver, Leach, Millar, & Scott, 1996; Millar, 1996; Millar & Hunt, 2002; Osborne, Duschl, & Fairbrother, 2002) have advocated that the proper perspective for science education in schools ought to be the cultural imperative. The cultural impera tive perspective sees STEM disciplines, knowledge, and practices as woven into the very fabric of our nations and societies. What the cultural imperative provides that the democratic and economic imperatives do not is recognition of important social and epistemic dimensions that are embedded in the growth, evaluation, representation, and communication of STEM knowledge and practices. New perspectives and under standings in the learning sciences about learning and learning environments, and in science studies about knowing and inquiring, highlight the importance of science

Science Education in Three-Part Harmony: Balancing Conceptual, Epistemic, and Social Learning Goals

In this article, we explore the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) with a lens informed by the socioscientific issues (SSI) movement. We consider the PISA definition of scientific literacy and how it is situated with respect to broader discussions of the aims of science education. We also present an overview of the SSI framework that has emerged in the science education community as a guide for research and practice. We then use this framework to support analysis of the PISA approach to assessment. The PISA and SSI approaches are seemingly well aligned when considering general aims. Both approaches emphasize preparing students for life and citizenship, complex reasoning and reflective practices, and robust understandings of the nature of science particularly as it is practiced in society. However, as the focus of comparison moves from the conceptual to more specific, the connections between PISA and the SSI movement become more tenuous. For instance, many of the PISA test items, at least those that have been released publicly, seem quite removed from the intent of the SSI movement. The article concludes with a discussion of recent trends in research associated with SSI, which may provide alternative avenues for assessing progressive aims of The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) represents a new approach, as compared to national and international assessment initiatives, for the assessment of student progress in science education.OneoftheuniqueandnotablefeaturesofPISAisthearticulationofscientificliteracythatservesas aconceptualunderpinningfortheproject.Thisvisionforscientificliteracy,whichhighlightslearners'useof science in real-life contexts, invites comparisons to progressive movements in science education. Within the last decade, science educators with progressive goals have increasingly focused on socioscientific issues (SSI) as learning contexts. In this article, we explore ways in which PISA and the socioscientific issues movement overlap and diverge. We begin with an overview of scientific literacy and a discussion of the diverse ideas that the construct has come to represent and then describe how PISA frames scientific literacy. Next,weintroduce thesocioscientificissuesmovementand offersocioscientific Discourseand development of student identities that support these Discourses as normative aims for science education. We then explore the push for standards, assessment, and accountability, which has become a central feature of modern education and the backdrop against which PISA has emerged. We introduce the PISA approach to assessment, and the framework used for developing its assessment instrument. Next, we present specific competenciesprioritized byPISA and sample itemsthat addressthese competencies as a means ofexploring ways in which PISA supports the socioscientific issues movement and ways in which the two initiatives diverge. We conclude the article by reviewing other strategies for assessment to support progressive aims of

Scientific literacy, PISA, and socioscientific discourse: Assessment for progressive aims of science education

This paper develops a conceptual basis for a model on the teaching of socio‐scientific controversial issues for secondary or high school students. I argue that the teaching of controversial issues needs a stronger theoretical base. Drawing on a liberal democratic conception of possible sources of conflict, three strands are developed that provide a framework for teachers when teaching socio‐scientific issues: these are categories of reasonable disagreement, the communicative virtues, and modes of thought. Examples are given to illustrate how the framework can be used by teachers in which the features of controversy are made explicit to students.

Towards a Theoretical Framework for Teaching Controversial Socio‐scientific Issues

The two cognitive styles, ‘field dependent/field independent’ and ‘convergent/divergent’, were explored in relation to three formats of assessment (multiple choice, short answer and structural communication grid) in five classroom chemistry tests. The study was conducted in Greece with the participation of Grade-10 (upper secondary school) pupils (age 15-16). The field dependent/independent characteristic correlated with pupils’ performance in all the tests, and in almost all the formats of assessment. The convergent/divergent characteristic correlated with pupils’ performance in assessment where language was an important factor, but not in algorithmic types of questions or in questions where there is a greater use of symbols and less use of words. It seems that, in relation to the convergent/divergent characteristic, the chemistry content and presentation of the test is a factor affecting the type of questions being asked. This study suggests that some of the factors that affect pupils’ performance might be: (a) the content and presentation of the test, (b) the format of the test, (c) the psychology of the individual. [Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2006, 7 (2), 64-83]

Cognitive factors that can potentially affect pupils’ test performance

Review of Research on Humanistic Perspectives in Science Curricula

Education policy encourages students to study a broad range of AS levels in their first post-16 year The AS Science for Public Understanding course offers science for non-science specialists This work aims to offer an understanding of science for those studying mainly arts A Levels This AS Level course from AQA has been developed in collaboration with the Nuffield Curriculum Projects Centre and the Science Education Group at the University of York Science for public understanding aims to broaden the curriculum post-16, for arts students who want to demonstrate the breadth of their abilities and for science students who want to place their studies into real-life contexts The text covers topics such as AIDS, and genetically modified food, and demonstrates the importance of science for understanding current issues It should help students use science to make sense of their lives and the world around them

AS Science for Public Understanding

This article describes the AQA AS-level course Science for Public Understanding, and explains its underlying rationale. It shows how a carefully designed topic-based course can be used to consolidate students' understanding of some key scientific explanations and ideas-about-science in a systematic manner. Also included are accounts by four teachers of how the course is being used in their school or college, and how their students are responding to it.

Science for Public understanding: a different way to teach and learn science

The government paper 14-19: opportunity and excellence (DfES, 2003a) presents evidence that there is a strong case for further reform of the education curriculum for 14-19 year-olds. This article discusses how these changes could affect science education and looks at the science education and training needed by this age group.

14-19: opportunity and excellence: what does it mean for science?

Este articulo describe el curso de bachillerato Ciencia divulgativa y explica las bases en que se fundamenta Muestra como un curso sobre un tema especifico y bien disenado puede servir para consolidar de un modo sistematico la comprension de los estudiantes sobre algunas importantes explicaciones cientificas y cuestiones relacionadas con la ciencia

Andrew Hunt

Papers

AS Science for Public Understanding

Science for Public understanding: a different way to teach and learn science

14-19: opportunity and excellence: what does it mean for science?

La ciencia divulgativa: una forma diferente de enseñar y aprender ciencia